Rosio at a Holt-funded community center in her neighborhood, where she is learning sewing skills she can use to start a small business.

Rosio’s Sewing Success Story

Rosio has three children, including one child with Down syndrome. In her neighborhood in southern Bogota, it’s extremely difficult to find safe child care. Too often, moms in low-income neighborhoods are forced to choose between staying home to take care of their children or leaving their kids at an unlicensed, unsafe daycare while they work to provide for their family.

“For children with special needs,” Rosio says, “the daycares are especially horrible. All the kids were just stuck in a room. No one talked to them or played with them. They just sat all day.”

Rosio had to find a way to make money so she could feed her kids, send them to school and afford their basic needs. But she also needed to stay home. She couldn’t send her child to such a terrible place all day.

When You Give a Sewing Machine …

If a kind, generous person like you didn’t give a sewing machine to Rosio, she never would have been able to afford one on her own.

“I barely made enough before to pay our rent. We moved around a lot before. We were hungry,” Rosio says. “When I found out about the training, I was so happy. I can’t believe you would give a sewing machine to help someone you don’t know. It is my miracle.”

Now, Rosio’s children are growing and thriving under the loving, watchful eye of their mom.